


bullseye

by deniigiq



Series: finding the lost and losing the found [5]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Aggression, Fights, Gen, Helmet Kiss, Heroism, M/M, Mandalorian Throw down ig, Romance, Team Dynamics, get your shining knight, get your shining knight in armor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28803606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: The world around Luke seemed to fall away in scales, leaving behind a pool of black, unbroken ice as far as the eye could see in every direction. The sky gave way only to stars. His breath did not cloud. His lips did not shake.This was the calm. And he would be the storm.(The Mandalorians come looking for their new leader, and instead find a Jedi all on his lonesome.)
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda & Luke Skywalker, Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker, Grogu | Baby Yoda & Luke Skywalker
Series: finding the lost and losing the found [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090520
Comments: 46
Kudos: 791





	bullseye

**Author's Note:**

> Right so things get a little intense from here on out. And apparently I'm leaning into the Din/Luke side of things. Things will lighten up again after this bit (for the most part). 
> 
> Anyways, yes. Still know I have Din Djarin's awareness of Star Wars. It's only me and Wookiepedia in this Denny's tonight. Thank you for your continued indulgence.

Han came into the shelter while Luke was counting heads and doing a damage survey and told him that Din had left. Luke was taken aback.

He didn’t even say goodbye. That was unlike him.

“I think he’s got a lot on his mind,” Han said. “He said bye to his kid.”

Luke scanned the room and found Grogu trying to climb up onto the stool by the window. He looked mournful.

“Oh,” Luke said lamely. “That’s alright then.”

Han took a breath that made his chest rise and Luke realized abruptly that if he didn’t do something now, then they were going to have a heart-to-heart that he didn’t want or need.

This was what nephews were for. Before Han could get a syllable out, Luke called Ben over and told him to talk to his dad. Han was caught off-guard when Ben exploded into movement and latched onto his side. Luke took the moment to escape.

He successfully avoided Han until all the kids were asleep and then made a huge fuss about his prosthetic hand being full of sand that he needed to deal with. Han’s crow’s feet had started twitching by that point. Luke smiled at him.

“You’re not clever. You’re not cute,” Han said.

“You’re right, I’m full of—”

“Luke, come on.”

Luke flattened himself against the desk in his room under Han’s stare.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Han squinted harder.

“Fine, be that way,” he said. “But at least pretend to buck up or Leia will come here herself and make Mando cry on your doorstep.”

Psh. As if anyone could make Din weep.

Things settled down back to normal. Luke found himself enforcing rules on increasingly violent games of tag. In the middle of that, he found Grogu hiding in a laundry basket; he fished him out and put him back inside the shelter. Ten minutes later, he re-found Grogu in the laundry basket and then had to go chase a bunch of insubordinate younglings out into the front courtyard screaming.

He got back and found Grogu had turned the basket upside-down and claimed it as his own. He watched it waddle through the dirt for a while before he decided to follow it. He stopped when it stopped. He sped up his pace when it did.

Grogu shrieked in agitation underneath.

Luke felt that that was about fair. If all these little monsters were going to take the piss out of him, he had every right to return the favor.

That would teach ‘em.

He took the laundry basket and fled, pursued at max baby-bog-cat speed.

He’d just gotten his other foot into his (admittedly poorly chosen) cabinet of deceit—also known as ‘the most superior of all hiding places in the shelter’—when the Force seemed to ripple through the room and the surrounding area. Luke’s mind went blank.

He broke out of the trance when the kids clattered and scuffled in from the front-facing courtyard. They weren’t giggling anymore or calling for each other to come out from their hiding. They were trembling.

“Master Luke?” someone whispered.

Luke wrangled himself out of the cabinet and hurried to the door. His heart stilled as he listened. Felt. Stared.

Something wasn’t right. A little hand was tugging on his tunic. He caught it and held it while he searched for the source of the disturbance.

“Grogu’s still outside,” Ben said quietly.

Right.

“Gather everyone and go into my quarters,” Luke said, spinning around and giving the hand in his to Ben. “Tell the staff that this is a Code 4 situation, okay?”

Ben’s eyebrows bent in and his lips curved down but he nodded and took his peer’s hand. Luke slipped outside.

Grogu was usually poking around the edge of the well. He liked the little bits of grass that grew there, and the bigger kids knew to leave him alone when they were all out screechinging and running.

But he wasn’t there now.

Luke felt his pulse leap.

“Grogu?” he called softly. “Grogu, buddy, it’s time to come in.”

He searched with the Force, but it was confused and wavering all over. Luke didn’t understand. Where was—where was—

His heart sunk.

Grogu was poking around the gate of the courtyard, hunting something with his ears back. Behind him on the horizon was a line of darkness. It advanced steadily.

Helmets.

Luke was moving before he was conscious of it. He snatched Grogu up by the gate and trapped him close to his chest.

Those helmets—they weren’t troopers. They were Mandalorians.

Twenty of them. No, thirty. No, there was a second line. No. No, no, no. They couldn’t be here. This was—there weren’t enough Jedis. There was only Luke. How was he to fight forty or fifty Mandalorians? He—

He needed his saber.

He sprinted back to the shelter and nearly crashed into every doorframe on his way back to his quarters. He didn’t have time to address the children. He put Grogu in the arms of the first staff member he encountered and snatched the saber hilt off his desk.

Finally, he found himself standing in front of the front door and things started to settle in his mind and heart. They had to settle.

He would _not_ become his father.

He would not walk into battle with the Force twisted and writhing in his being.

“Everyone,” he said without turning around. “Things will be okay. But you must listen to what your teachers tell you to, do you understand?”

A susurrus of ‘yes, Master Luke’ fluttered against his back. He let his head nod once. And then he stepped off into that familiar abyss of uncertainty.

By the time he got to the gate, the line of Mandalorians had advanced to the point where Luke could see the colors in their helmets. These came as a rainbow, with patterns of all varieties carved and painted upon them. Some were polished, some were chipping. Bits and pieces of beskar caught the sun’s light in that crowd. Its glittering was equally joined, however, by a sea of makeshift armor that was dented, scratched, and covered with capes, shawls, coats, and cloaks.

The line of armor came to a stop mere feet away from the gate. One of the helmets stepped out before all the others. It was red. Red with chipped white paint skirting along its edges and slits.

“Luke Skywalker,” the helmet said.

Luke tipped his chin down in a nod of acknowledgement.

“Where is the Mand’alor?” the helmet asked calmly. “Word is that you have been seeking his presence.”

“I don’t know,” Luke said. “We have no business with you here.”

“He lies,” someone in the metal crowd hissed.

Luke felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“I do _not_ lie,” he said. “I have no reason not to tell you the truth. And the truth is that I do not know where your Mand’alor is.”

The red and white helmet bowed its head in a nod.

“I understand, Jedi,” it said.

“Understand what?” Luke demanded. “I said that we have no business with Mandalorians here.”

He looked up and found the line of armor shifting. His heart started to quicken.

“We have _nothing_ ,” he said on the edge of pleading, “We don’t know where your leader is, but he is not here. We do not threaten you and we do not threaten your leader. _I_ do not threaten you or your leader. I sought him out only once. This is a misunderstanding, I only wished to provide him with information. Please, leave us here in peace.”

“He still lies,” someone whispered to the person next to them. “They all do.”

There was a long pause.

“It isn’t personal, Jedi,” the red Mandalorian finally said.

“They are _children_ ,” Luke begged.

“And they will be safe,” a Mandalorian nearby wearing a navy blue and teal helmet said quietly. “This is the Way.”

The world around Luke seemed to fall away in scales, leaving behind a pool of black, unbroken ice as far as the eye could see in every direction. The sky gave way only to stars. His breath did not cloud. His lips did not shake.

This was the calm. And he would be the storm.

He’d heard of the feuds before his time. Of Jedi-killers and wars and twisted, twitching bodies left in the wake of clattering armor.

It was one of the reasons why Luke had been so confused when he’d first received Grogu’s transmission all those months ago. The images that had washed through the Force to his mind were ones that framed a lone Mandalorian in colors and lights that Luke wouldn’t have thought to apply to any such person. There was gold sun glinting off a silvery helmet; there was a purple sigh and a rusty, red embrace.

Grogu painted Din Djarin in battlefield blood and tender, twanging copper. He said without words that this man had helped him. That this man was fighting to help, to return Grogu to those to whom he’d originally (always) belonged.

Other Jedi, if they had received the same transmission, must have read that message and cleared farther back than ever.

A Mandalorian was a Mandalorian. Their colors did not change. They heard no reason.

And Luke nearly did the same, but what stopped him then was the same thing that weakened his knees even now when it came to Din Djarin.

It was this tidal wave of loneliness. Grogu felt it. He felt it through the fabric of Din’s gloves. Through the little barks of laughter that he drew from Din’s throat. He witnessed it tangled up in an aching sadness and resignation. He beseeched whoever received his message to try to understand that he did not wish to leave this person. This person, Grogu believed, needed him as much as he needed them. But Grogu was willing to make the sacrifice of leaving Din Djarin if it meant that he would no longer be in harm’s way because of him.

The transmission was, in effect, a plea of protection for the Mandalorian Din Djarin.

Luke had never been able to ignore a cry for help. Even one that put his feet on the same battleground as a Jedi-killer. A murderer. A warrior of untold ingenuity and endless persistence.

He’d promised Grogu that he would protect them both—Grogu himself _and_ Din Djarin, in exchange for Grogu’s commitment to learning the way of the Jedi.

That culture would not die on Luke Skywalker’s watch.

He and Din shared these stakes.

So he planted his feet and he lit his saber and he gave into the rush of the fight.

He probably could have handled four or five Mandalorians. Maybe.

Forty or more?

This was a death sentence. He was running out of breath and out of space. The armored bodies were crowding around him. Each swing of the saber threatened limbs and torsos, but Mandalorians worked in networks. They had each other, and in that, they had no fear.

Luke slammed a fist into one neck, which he now knew was unpadded territory, and kicked out at the side of another, but these soldiers just cried out and kept going. The best Luke could hope for was to aim for the armor that didn’t gleam with beskar.

It wasn’t enough. Every body that went down was replaced by another. Bits of beskar were swimming through hands specifically to help block the saber.

The circle around him had grown tighter, and Mandos outside the inner circle knew what their job was. They helped constrict the playing field closer inch by inch from the outside until Luke barely had a three-foot diameter to spin in.

He had to find a way out. He started trying to see over helmets, but—

But—

He was too short.

WHAT A TIME, UNIVERSE.

Fuck these tall people. Come on, Yoda. Some _serious_ wisdom would be helpful right about now.

He’d just about decided that a little momentum could probably land him on a Mando’s shoulder, at which point he could probably leap into a part of the crowd that was least expecting it when his cage of bodies started to destabilize.

The four Mandos blocking Luke in his tiny circle didn’t move an inch, but between their shoulders Luke saw bodies and armor turning back, looking over shoulders. Scolding started up. Mandos in the second ring told the third to hold steady—what’s your problem, man? Can’t you see we’re trying to choke the Jedi???

Luke heard one of the people in the third ring say, ‘Who the kriff is Silver?’

“HEY, SILVER,” someone shouted. “You wanna get with the program?”

There was obviously no answer, not that Luke cared because his joints had turned to water.

He wasn’t the least bit surprised when Red and White to his right vanished into thin air. The crowd was, though.

One moment, Red appeared to be leading this charge, the next, he’d been caught around the throat and dragged down into the dirt. Luke started to move forward to seize the chance to break out, but an arm with blue armor on it snatched that chance from his hands. It wrapped itself around his own neck and dragged him back away from what was turning into a nasty wrestling session on the ground in front of him.

Luke didn’t fight it, even though his eyes watered as Din’s familiar silver armor finally got leverage and planted itself on Red Helmet’s hips. Din landed knuckles so hard against the side of Red’s helmet that the paint came off.

And he didn’t stop.

People started _freaking out_.

“Someone grab him—”

“The fuck are you lookin’ at me for?”

“SILVER.”

“Silver, are you drunk???”

“Silver!”

“Is he protecting the Jedi??”

“Jedi mind-trick?”

“Jedi mind- _what_?”

Wuh-oh.

Luke looked up and found himself being stared down by the chorus of helmets that weren’t presently occupied trying to haul Din up off Red over there.

“I didn’t do anything,” Luke cried.

This was the wrong thing to say. The Mandalorians became about three times as agitated as before.

“—he’s being controlled by the Jedi—SILVER. Silver!!”

“Silver, man, come on, listen to us. He’s _using you_.”

“Someone get him _off already_.”

“DID YOU JUST BITE ME, YOU PIECE OF SHIT??”

The jostling got harder and more vicious and the Mandalorian holding Luke by the neck snapped at the people around her to stay back, she had things under control. And to her credit, only moments later, Din sprang up and said something, and the circle that Luke had been dancing in exploded from three feet to nine or ten.

Din repeated what he’d shouted, this time lowly and far more dangerously. Luke blinked in shock as the arm around his neck loosened.

The familar sound of a saber rang out and the crowd stumbled back even further as though some kind of electric wire had been planted in the dirt.

“My name is Din Djarin, and _I_ am the Mand’alor,” Din said, holding the Darksaber out to the side so that everyone could see it.

More than one person dropped their weapon. A murmur rushed through the concentric circles around them.

“If any of you have a problem, step forward,” Din said.

People started looking at each other. Then there was movement as some idiots apparently _did_ take issue and started to move to the middle of the crowd. Din spread his feet and bent his knees into a crouch.

The saber hummed.

Red Helmet picked himself up on the sidelines and hurriedly stepped back as best as he could into the front line. A Mandalorian in green stepped out as he melted in.

“Who are _you_ to wield the Darksaber in defense of a Jedi?” she demanded. “Have you no self-respect?”

Din said nothing.

The green Mandalorian scoffed.

“I’ll take that thing from your traitorous hands,” she said, lowering herself into a similar crouch as Din.

Within seconds, she lashed out at him with studded knuckles. Din swerved hard to the side to avoid them, then grabbed her arm with his empty fist and pulled so that she went face-first into the sand at his side. He left her lying there.

“Anyone else?” he asked while Green brought herself back to her body.

“Bo-Katan is the Mand’alor,” someone in the back said. “What did you do to her?”

“Anyone else?” Din repeated instead of answering.

An orange and grey fist arose somewhere in the middle ranks, and Mandalorians moved so as to let this giant through the crowd. The person’s cape was riddled with holes. Their helmet had been patched.

Din sunk a little lower. Green finally stood up behind him and got out of the way.

Orange’s helmet stared in silence. Their hands hung at their side next to a holster. Luke opened his mouth to shout, but as soon as he did a glove slammed down over his face.

Orange put their weight back on their hip and Din, surprisingly, straightened up. The saber vanished into its hilt. He put it away, and then lifted his hands to the sides of his head. The other Mandalorians were transfixed.

“Go on,” Din said. “Shoot.”

Orange held their ground.

“Shoot,” Din ordered.

Orange’s helmet appeared to be having second thoughts. Din’s own was serenity itself.

Orange twitched, but Din twitched faster.

The sound of his blaster was unmistakable. Orange dropped to their knees, clutching at their hand, and Din holstered his gun.

He brought his helmet up to face those before him, and then started speaking in that language from before. Luke didn’t understand quite what he was saying, but he did know that whatever it was cowed the group and made the glove pressing into his face slip away.

Din’s helmet turned right towards him.

He held out a hand. Luke frowned at it. Din flicked his fingers in a ‘come here’ gesture.

The arm around Luke’s neck vanished entirely. Blue Armor edged backwards towards the other Mandalorians and left Luke standing in the circle on his own only two paces or so away from Din.

Din cleared his throat.

“Skywalker,” he said.

Luke lifted his gaze to meet Din’s visor, then looked back at the hand.

He didn’t understand, but everyone was watching.

It was like they were all holding their breath.

He reached out and took the hand. Din pulled him forward by it fluidly, and it took Luke a moment before he realized that he wasn’t stopping. Din just kept pulling, even when Luke entered his so carefully guarded personal space. The glove only left Luke’s hand when his face was inches away from the side of Din’s gleaming helmet.

It seemed unusually shiny.

Luke jumped when something touched his waist and looked down to see that it was that glove again, wrapping around him, pressing into the small of his back.

“Skywalker.”

His eyes came back up.

“Do me a favor,” Din whispered, painfully close to Luke’s face. “Touch my helmet with both hands.”

Helmet?

But the helmet was off-limits, remember? No touching, no stealing, only punching, yes?

“Do you or do you not want to walk away from this?” Din asked quietly. “Do what I tell you, and they will all be safe. Both hands.”

Luke swallowed and brought his fingers up to the helmet.

“Close your eyes,” Din said.

Luke did. His heart was pounding.

He braced for something, he wasn’t sure what, probably something sharp.

But it didn’t come.

Cold metal touched his forehead. That was it. There was nothing more, nothing less. It stayed there for what felt like forever, however. It had even started to warm from Luke’s skin when it finally pulled away.

“This person is under the personal protection of the Mand’alor,” Din told the others at a half-shout as Luke opened his eyes and tried to process what had just happened. “You will treat him and his charges with the dignity and respect that you would treat any of our own.”

There was a long silence broken by a single a murmur. Then many murmurs. Luke glanced out into the throng of body and found that a Mandalorian in magenta and yellow a few paces away had plastered both of their hands to their helmet and perhaps had gotten frozen that way. They weren’t the only one either.

Din let them all process whatever scandal he’d just dragged Luke into for a moment before he barked something in the other language that set everyone to scrambling to attention again.

“You’re dismissed,” he said.

No one moved.

“I mean NOW,” Din snapped.

Pandemonium ensued.

**Author's Note:**

> absolutely not a damn thing against Mandalorians, btw. I think they're delightful. I have a bit of them in a draft somewhere celebrating an event by drinking and performing 'salacious dances' on hologram messages as a type of congratulations. 
> 
> I'm sure that they're all a hoot. They just had to be a little hive-mindy here in this moment in time.


End file.
